Props to the Proppies
by SkyPhoenix401
Summary: All my short Planes snippets are being piled here, in no order. T for language and possible adult referencing, but no threat of explicit content or violence in these.
1. Day of the Dead (H)

AN: A quick snippet of shenanigans because I'm bored and on a writing kick, and researching for my bigger projects is a pain in the ass. This is my excuse over researching California child custody laws.

**Day of the Dead**

They had known this day was coming from the moment that the coffee pot started rattling each morning, practically spitting out a pot of joe spitefully as it was worn thin. There was no telling _just_ how many times it was run in a single day; outside of "The Gathering" each morning, in which every member on campus had between one and three decently sized mugs worth, there were still treadfulls of incidents when teammates came back for another mid-day cup, or three. Blade in particular held up a habit of evening-drinking - he didn't sleep anyway, and nightworking was something he preferred, since it was usually quieter and less stress-inducing. Usually.

July, however, put the caffeine laborer to the ultimate test. In that month alone, there were at _least _five whole cans of coffee grains downed, and with two of the base's residence being temporarily grounded as they recovered from recent injuries, one of which being an additional firefighter on base for training, there were even _more _daily go-backs than usual.

It was inevitable, but still overwhelmingly surprising to the team, the day the coffee pot died. It rattled and whined, and then finally after five minutes of attempting to finish the job, it gave up, with a loud '_clunk!' _and a hiss of steam spewing out from the sides. It was done.

It was also the only one they had on base. And it had chosen to die _that_ morning, before anyone had even gotten a cup out of it.

In a nutshell, all hell broke loose in the Piston Peak Air Attack.

Still half-asleep and starting on a cup of low-grade - yes, because alcohol in the morning is such a great decision - Maru tried to beat the old pot back together. But every part of it was too old and tattered, and practically fell apart the moment it was taken out. Slamming the thing on the desk, he finally gave up on it.

Go get a damn new one.." He grumbled to Blade, probably more snappy than he should've been, but no one was awake anyways. Saying that they needed anything 'new' was already breaking his lifelong code. The helicopter, just as half-asleep and seriously debating a can of one of those low-grades, just growled a reply and took off.

He was gone a couple hours. The nearest hardware store they knew of - and remotely trusted - was in Sacramento. Sending Blade was probably the best call because he didn't get lost in a store the way that Dipper did, and he didn't try to bargain for scrap items in the back like Maru. He _also _had everyone's best interests in mind when it came to finding a coffee pot that they could beat the ever living daylights out of. Nobody cared about making lattes with the thing anyways.

By the time he was back, most of the team was ready to murder each other, but surprisingly no fights had broken out – yet. Cabbie and Windlifter primarily were making sure of that.

Maru had the new coffee pot assembled in the kitchen quick and rather effortlessly - Blade suspected he was probably a little buzzed, but if he got the job done then he got it done - and finally they had their coffee pot back. Sort of.

It was a different model, and supposedly it had other features that nobody really cared about, but it was the most durable looking one and one of the more affordable, so no one could really complain. And they certainly couldn't complain after that first pot.

"I never knew straight black coffee could be so smooth…" Blade admitted.

"Makes you wonder what happened to it with the old one." Cabbie added.

Less than a week later, the machine was already up to making low rattling sounds, likely in irritation of the amount of teamates that doubled on their coffee-drinking numbers, but it wasn't meant for the air attack base if it wasn't a bit rattled anyways. It did its job, and as such it was respected for it, though they still beat the crap out of it.

Such is the life of a fire station coffee machine.


	2. The Worst Thing (G)

AN: Dusty is in firefighting livery since he just came back from PPAA. This is after the corn festival - and before you try to question it, yeah, it took a while before the thing started to happen so it didn't show up during the festival. Maru likely warned him after the fact anyways. Also his pontoons are off. Just, I didn't wanna have to deal with them. No one does it seems.

**The Worst Thing**

Few things tended to be entirely dreaded by the former crop-duster. Sure, there were adulting things he didn't exactly enjoy doing - taxes, medical papers and bills, helping to keep the Propwash fire department up to code - but they were never things he well and truly despised.

It seemed only one thing held that title as the worst thing.

Having to be grounded.

"I'm boooored." Dusty whined, pacing in circles in Dottie's workshop. It was the off season, the perfect time for training or a Sunday flight, but he'd been sitting on his aft all week because of a _stupidly _minor engine malfunction.

Dottie didn't deny Maru's capabilities, especially considering he was able to completely rebuild a new gear box for Dusty, but he'd only been home from Piston Peak for a month or so, and she wasn't taking any chances if something was going on again.

All that had happened anyways was a sort of fluttering stall for half a second mid-flight a couple of days ago. It was something Maru had specifically mentioned would probably happen anyways. With a completely different part, his engine still needed to get used to it, but it was unlikely to do anything more than a couple of flutters, until he grew accustomed to how differently it performed.

The 'minor malfunction' that Dottie specifically referred to as reason for grounding Dusty for a few days was one particular engine fluctuation that _almost _stalled his engine. He played it off like he was just doing a stunt, knowing full well what it was. Skipper somehow caught it, and so Dottie did too.

"It's _supposed _to do that! It's fine!" He argued.

"It's still not safe to be flying while it does!" Dottie replied, firm in her decision.

It wouldn't be a permanent thing, anyways. So long as she could check each day and see that his engine ran smoothly, she'd eventually clear him to fly again once the engine finally got used to it.

Dusty, however, was growing impatient.

"It's been four days…" He said, still circling in Dottie's garage, to the point that a trail was worn into the concrete.

"Go bother Skipper to watch a movie then." Dottie suggested, "I already ran today's performance test, we'll try it again tomorrow."

"But it's _fine, _it'll go back to normal faster if I actually _use_ it!"

"You're still recovering from your _last _injury on top of it!" Dottie replied.

"I made it back here okay, didn't I?" The red and white plane huffed. Dottie glared at him in that way that said 'I'm done arguing with you' without words.

Dusty, giving up yet again, sighed and left the hangar, deciding just to go sit in the grass and sunbathe / sulk under the clear skies.

He hadn't expected to find Skipper out too.

"I thought you were out?" He asked his mentor.

"I was." he said simply, "I got bored."

"Pff, at least you can go _out._" Dusty said. He rolled up next to the old warbird, opting to sit landing gear up in the bright green grass. It tickled against his belly, but eventually he found it comfortable just to sit and relax, the earth firm and solid underneath him.

The two planes sat together silently at the end of the town for a while, watching drifting clouds and making images out of them, only to watch it change and morph into something else. No words were ever spoken, but there never needed to be. They had known each other for long enough now, they were practically connected through their cores like it was the Shining or something.

For the first time in four days, Dusty actually felt calm about the situation. All week he'd been antsy and agitated with boredom, practically begging Dottie to let him up in the air again. He'd thought about up and ignoring her rule and just taking off, but he'd already done that before, and look where that had gotten him. He'd already learned that lesson the hard way.

He'd spent the latter half of the afternoon still sitting and watching the sky, the sun beginning to touch the horizon, turning the skies into pinks and oranges that gleamed softly against his fresh coat of red paint. A symbol of change, physical and mental, that he'd undergone events that would undoubtedly change the course of his life forever.

Even after Skipper had gone, Dusty sat watching the world grow dark, thinking. Wondering when the first incident would arrive in town that he would have to respond to. Wondering when, or even if, he'd get to go back to Piston Peak. Wondering how much of his time his second career would take. Or when the next firefighter would join Propwash. And, probably the most thought question, when will it all wear him down to the point he would have to choose? Surely he couldn't keep up two demanding careers as much as he'd predicted for the rest of his life. Eventually, it may come down to one or the other. One job he wanted, the other needed. Could he keep up a scheduled racing life while his firefighting one remained completely unpredictable? Could he really stand changing paint and switching landing gear around all the time? What would happen in an emergency if he had no pontoons? It was a tedious switch at best, time consuming and, like his new gear box, in need of adjustment.

Eventually, he considered, he would just see. Wait and see was his answer, as much as he hated the idea of going into the unknown and hoping that nothing bad was going to happen. But that's how his life had been before racing became his full career, before firefighting was even a part of his life.

With a calm, confident smile, he got up from his patch of grass and rolled back to his own hangar for the night. "_Aim for the moon," _he thought, remembering his mother's words to him the day he left home, "_even if you miss, you'll still land among the stars."_

Thankfully with his new-found calmer approach to his own future, he was less antsy about grounding than he had been. And wouldn't you know it, the next day his engine cleared without a hitch.

"I guess I can clear you then to fly." Dottie said, albeit reluctantly.

"_Finally!_" Dusty said, not hiding his joy in knowing he was allowed to be up in the air again. "Tell Skipper I'll be warming up before practice, I'm not waiting on him to get off the runway!"

And with that, he took off, free at last. Dottie just shook her head, watching him rev down the runway. As mature as he'd become, she didn't think he'd ever lose that childish excitement. She hoped he'd never lose it, too.

[This is basically just a reinvention of Sleepless in Propwash but I don't care, It's still better than it was.]


	3. Game of Thrones (H)

AN: I had previously thought Propwash Junction to be in Iowa. Then after a purchase of the Planes "Official Guide" book I realised the set location was in Minnesota. So there's that. Also there's an OC in here briefly, Cassidy, Blade's adopted grand-niece. I will leave reference notes to her at the end of the story for later context. T because language - Blade's to be exact. California helis don't mix with Minnesota weather.

Game of Thrones

It was a rare occurrence that Dusty ever got to spend time with Skipper and Blade at the _same time. _Schedules never coordinated right, things always showed up at the last minute, and travelling halfway across the country was tedious at best. But thankfully for them all, a perfect window of opportunity had presented itself in the middle of December. Dusty was in between two races that had a week and a half gap between them, there was snow on the ground at the Air Attack base. Even Cassidy was on winter break, so she could come along for the flight to Minnesota.

They - meaning Blade and Dusty mainly - planned the dates up, and December 14th, Dusty and company were eagerly awaiting the choppers from their little locale airstrip. The morning was frosty with fresh-fallen snow, but the winds were low so there were no core-rattling chills. Skipper looked over at the bright orange plane, sticking out like a sore thumb around the faded whites and greys of the landscape, in a pair of blue earmuffs and a long crocheted scarf around his front. Yep, wintertime nerd. But who could blame him, he could pull it off.

The two helicopters showed up around 11AM, tires and skids landing on the thawed out section of the runway. Cass had a bit of a slip up on the ice as she'd landed, but she held up nicely.

Both of them, Skipper noticed, had their own winter setups, Blade with a set of sturdier, less slip-prone snowtires over his landing gear, and Cass a set of green and yellow skid-warmers. The MH-6 Little Bird hybrid seemed pretty used to the cold though, growing up in the north side of Portland. Blade, on the other tire, was not as amused to the idea of the frozen water falling from the sky.

"You're not shivering, are you?" Dusty questioned.

"It's fucking cold." was Blade's short reply.

After getting everyone into the main hangar - chosenly Skipper's because it was both the most spacious and the cleanest (Dusty had reasons for being unorganised) - Sparky pulled out a deck of cards. Namely, one that everyone knew how to play even if it had been decades.

"We used to play this _all _the time on the set." Blade mentioned, as Dottie dealt everyone the cards for the first round.

"Is Uno really _that_ old?" Chug asked, to which Blade and Skipper both returned stone cold glares.

"'71," The Augustawestland said, "isn't _that _old."

The first _Uno _round was the basic one - the only house rule was stacking, where one could play a draw two on top of another draw two and "stack" the draws onto the next vehicle, until no more draw cards could be placed. This was probably the most hilarious thing to watch for the group, seeing everyone stack twos together just to dump them all on Dusty when it was a draw _twelve_.

"No fair!" He said.

"Way fair, you agreed to stacking!" Cassidy reminded him.

By the end of the game - which had already taken a good hour or so to finish - Dottie won, while the boys were all trying to team up and completely destroy the former crop-duster. In the end it was assumed he still had about twenty-three cards. He did get to exact some revenge in round two though, when everyone decided to pair up in teams for a slightly shorter game. Dusty paired with Chug and Sparky, Skipper with Cassidy, and Blade with Dottie - the most overpowered team by far, as the rest argued.

"You have three people in your team." Blade said.

"Because the three of us together can only amount to _one _complete brain!" Chug answered. No one could really deny them on that statement.

After a surprising win of round two by Skipper and Cassidy, Dottie and Chug left to work on some things over at the Fill n' Fly, and Sparky went to help them out, so it was just the crop-duster, his two mentors, and the Little Bird.

Their second game choice was a WWII variation of Monoploy, in which Blade kicked ass and Dusty and Cassidy both kept falling on war bonds and income taxes. Skipper was hot on the red and white helicopter's tail though, owning all but one of the railroads - or in this case, the '_Atlantic Convoys', 'Red Ball Express', _and '_Flying the Hump' _properties. Blade still managed to claim the '_Alcan Highway'. _It was a close call, but Blade still won in the end.

Then, while Cassidy went to play a few rounds of Jenga with the others, Dusty took the opportunity to pull out the 'grown up game' that Skipper had only ever heard tellings of from Chug and Sparky, in a very giggly, half-drunken manner. He himself didn't _want_ to know what shenanigans went on in the game, but apparently they were about to find out when he set down the black and white box.

"Oh my gosh...this is a _game?!_" the warbird questioned, worryingly going through his set of cards. The chopper looked about as concerned as he felt.

"Yes!" Dusty half-chuckled back.

Well, this was going to be interesting.

Admittedly, a round of the game and a round of beers later, all three of them were having a pretty ridiculous but fun time, especially around a few choice card placements.

By the time all was said and done, Dusty won the round, and the group decided to call it a night. It was a fun night for sure, and one that everyone would remember.

Everyone went back to sleep in their own respective hangars, Blade staying in Skipper's and Cassidy in Dottie's, opting to stay the night rather than freeze their tails off in the winter weather. Blade had absolutely _no_ objections to avoiding the minus-four-degree weather outside.

"'t's _fucking _cold." He muttered.

"Goodnight!" Dusty replied, "And welcome to Minnesota."

Special Notes:

When I was trying to think up a Monopoly variation for them to play, the first thing that came to my head was a WWII version - cuz Skipper. And then I was like "nah...that doesn't exist." Well come to find out, yes actually, _it does. _Look it up if you don't believe me.

for reference because I didn't describe her too much here, Cassidy Lopez is a purple and white hybrid helicopter, mostly of Hughes 500d and MH-6 Little Bird decent, and about thirteen or so in here. Yes you heard me right, _Lopez. _To be explained in future writings when I get off my aft and do them.

I wanted to see if anyone could get the 'grown up game' without me blurting out, but in case you didn't catch on or don't know it, they played _Cards Against Humanity. _And it's hilarious.

Title from the idea in my headcanon that Dusty, Skipper and Blade are all, respectively, the greatest card-game champions in their circles, so putting them head-to-head was like a fight for the king of the games.


	4. Home

Since he had become a racer, Dusty never looked back at his old life. At least, not in any way that warranted him wanting to go back to it. But he had thought back to it, as an exception, wondering if Leadbottom would still be able to manage out there all on his own at his age.

Before he showed up, Dusty had heard tell of other crop dusters helping out in that field, though he never knew more than that, even as much as Leadbottom could run his mouth. When he'd gotten to Propwash Junction, the old biplane was the only farmer there. He knew Dusty was the right build, young, and sturdy enough to carry on the business. Maybe he had made plan to retire originally. Not that he ever did when the younger air tractor joined him.

He cared about his job too much. It was that same hole of overworking that everyone else appeared to get stuck in - even Dusty had found himself constricted into the mindset of "I'll stop working when I'm dead" when it came to his own career, even as incredibly stress-inducing as that had become. So he couldn't see Leadbottom ever pulling out of it any time soon. Not until his engine seized up and forced him to. But then, he wondered, when it eventually did, who would take over then?

Propwash Junction today wasn't the same as it was forty years ago. Older folks passed away, or moved away, and younger ones moved in. Then there was the business explosion in the town after Dusty had begun to make a name for himself, and now new housing developments were being put up all over the grid. It was a bittersweet - good in that it meant the town would finally get the things it needed and the vehicles to use them, but sad because it was the end of an era, the beginning of closure of that little farm town in the middle of nowhere, where the radio stations were all on old country music and the biggest roadside attraction within 20 miles was the "world's largest prop". But then again, before his time the town was even less of a 'town' - the main streets were all but loose gravel trails and dirt roads. Leadbottom had watched the place grow up from that, and where was he then? Dusting the fields, the same as he always had. No one seemed to recall a time before then, hardly even him it felt like.

Though Dusty already had a strong grandfather figure, he'd always looked to Leadbottom the same way he did his ol' pops. Okay, well, maybe more like if Leadbottom was his great uncle twice removed, but still, like family no matter how far they're gone. And he empathised with the fact that, truly, he was getting up there in Skipper's age and still working full-time, and he was starting to slow down. It didn't take a trained eye to see it. He'd have to find another route to go eventually.

Along with the drastic expansion of the town in the last few years, there was also a drastic change in the kinds of folks that it inhabited. Less and less of Propwash's residents were the kinds of hard-working day-laborers they really needed, more of them leaning towards small-town businesses and shops, and other, out-of-town jobs. The change was bound to hurt their crop field production, if it hadn't been already - Dusty never really looked at the numbers.

Indeed, the world was changing, maybe for the better, and still maybe for the worse. But when old timers began to flounder, young guns would soon too be there to learn the ways, and on the chain would descend into another, even more innovative generation of beings, to hone their skill and pass it onto the next one's looking to take up their torches. When he thought about it that way, such a job was honestly a very honorable position.

It almost made Dusty wish he hadn't just abandoned his old job from before so quickly. He'd been at it for so long anyways, and Leadbottom wouldn't be around forever. But then again, he thought, if he had stayed, he would not have been able to see what he saw now in that job. He wouldn't have been able to cherish those days for being what they were, or where they would soon lead. And most of all, he considered, gazing off into the skies at a new CA-28 Ceres, probably in his early thirties, it would give others the opportunities he got, the chance to learn and grow from such a place and become something greater, something more. Whether or not that meant leaving later was up to them, but it was how they chose to begin their path that would set up where they would be headed. He, of all planes, should know.

Indeed it's true, you have to fight through some bad days to earn the best days of your life.

Notes:

-I have no idea what this is. I gave up trying to make some kind of story or point behind this.

-Leadbottom...backstory? I guess? I don't know. Boredom and light writing while I work around 'Emergency' snags some more.


	5. A Wise Decision

Alternate name: "Tooth Be Told"

Dottie had already warned the hyperactive Air Tractor about it long before. Before racing, before firefighting, before he had even decided on what it was he wanted to do with his life. Of course, back then it didn't really matter. Naturally, the orange and white plane shrugged it off. "I'll get to it when it happens". They hadn't even shown up yet, let alone begun the process of trying to break through. But the day was coming, and they would have to find a way to plan accordingly.

It hadn't begun showing signs of time being near until the beginning of June, in the year following his firefighting certification. Despite flying through hoops to get that certificate, and then even more to keep that title sustained, Dusty was managing to keep it up, managing two jobs equally. But it brought with it a lot of stress and tension, and a full set of wisdom teeth trying to break through were not helping matters.

That was his excuse the first time the signs showed up. He just blamed it on the overworking. Of course, knowing Dusty, he'd never slow that down, or try to, so even if it was, there was nothing they could do about it. But then it started getting worse, slowly but steadily. General anesthetics could barely cut it anymore.

Dottie knew as well where things were surely headed in the next month. Nearly every check-up, she'd catch him grinding his teeth, clearly in irritated discomfort. Whatever stress chews from racing season he still had were worn thin and torn up in many areas - even ones that were supposed to have lasted a long time still.

"You know he's a long ways out," She finally told him, "You're going to have to schedule an appointment inow/i while you're still ahead."

"Yeah, I'll do it in a bit." He told her.

Well, he always said things like that.

Dottie was certainly a great mechanic, and especially great to have close by and at greatly discounted appointments, but she didn't work with an aircraft's teeth. That profession was left up to another to take care of, and unfortunately for the lot of them, the nearest place that they had from their home in Minnesota that was decent wasn't even iin/i Minnesota. It was over in Wisconsin, a ways south-east of them. Dr. Steven McLaren was one of the best Dottie, Chug, Sparky, Dusty and even Skipper had ever met. Don't let the sleek-looking exterior fool you though, the guy was all too well invested in his job to want to do anything else with his life. He too was doing more than he was built for, in a manner of speaking.

Eventually, Dottie and Skipper both decided to up and set up the appointment for him. The kid tended to be a bit on the scatter-brained side more often than not anymore, but who could blame him, really. Times were busy now, with him and Mayday up to their eyes renovating the fire station in Propwash and on a hunt for more firefighters to be stationed, and having races to compete in on top of it, not to mention all the papers and medical records and registrations and headaches that went with every race on the circuit. Skipper only hoped he'd wake up before he crashed in the burning pit of overworking oneself to death - again. He'd say Blade could talk sense into him, but...well, in all fairness he was probably worse...actually, scratch iprobably/i out of that...

McLaren was pretty swamped too with patients, and Dusty felt he was "in no rush" for an appointment. Not that he'd get any special attention from celebrity status there anyways. Still, the earliest time they could set up was in the beginning of July, and the longer time wore on, the worse things got.

Most all vehicles had wisdom teeth, slightly less frequent in forklifts, pitties, and certain other terrestrial vehicles, but normal all the same. And the 'norm' for those who did have them was to get them pulled out, as soon as possible. There was a pretty high chance they would end up growing in crooked, or otherwise crowding up the available space and causing a lot of pain.

Most vehicles went between 15 and 21, in the window where the teeth began to push upwards and against the gums at the back of their jaws, but not so late that they had broken teeth or crammed them all together too tightly. Dusty was a little past that threshold of the "get it done before it hurts" age, but to be fair his teeth were a bit slower to develop than they had thought. Nearly 27 now, the wisdom teeth were finally at the point of actually beginning to ido/i something, and so it would be now or never to have them pulled.

As the latter half of June wore on, anesthetics were more steadily used and increased to the highest amount Dottie was willing to give him without sending him overboard. The day before the end of the month, they broke out the icepacks. It was especially bad at night, it seemed, when there wasn't the other things of life to occupy his mind. Skipper didn't think he was even sleeping anymore, more just laying miserably with an icepack crammed against his cheek all night.

July eighth couldn't come any faster, and the young plane was, almost in a literal sense, chomping at the bit to get going. Dusty and Skipper flew out together in the morning, planning to get an transport back - Dusty wouldn't be able to fly on his own for at least twenty-four hours after the main anesthesia wore off. What else was new.

They showed up in Ladysmith before it was even eight o'clock, landing in the Rusk County Airport, or KRCX, at seven forty-eight. McLaren's office wasn't far from the airport, but it was a bit of a ride there. At least there wasn't a lot of ground-traffic in such a small town.

The appointment wasn't scheduled to be until nine, but there was still some paperwork to be gone through, and the up-front payment. Skipper could practically hear the young plane's tanks doing somersaults; because of the anesthesia, he wasn't able to eat or drink anything eight hours prior to the appointment - and Skipper was pretty certain that he hadn't ever gone more than about four without snacking on something. What got him to Wisconsin was leftover fuel from before that time period.

About eight thirty or so, McLaren was already expecting his next patient. There were some pre-done things, a scan, and a general assessment of what was going to occur. Though still clearly nervous, Dusty did everything as he was told, asking a couple questions here and there where he may have been confused or concerned. As expected, the x-rays clearly showed four fully-developed wisdom teeth in the back corners of his jaws, two on the top and two on the bottom, just under the gums.

Skipper stayed by his side up until the actual setup for the surgery. At that point, he'd been asked to leave the room.

"Take care, I'll pick you up in a few hours." The war bird said as he departed them. He wasn't sure if the half-chuckle of a response was genuine, or forced as a cover-up for the feelings of sudden terror. He had the mind to believe it was probably the latter. "You'll be alright, he knows what he's doing." He added as comfort.

He vividly remembered the discussion with the nurse about all of the do's and don'ts after the fact. He could recall every last detail of the setup before the anesthesia had been administered. But after it had, all time seemed to have stopped, as it often did when he was knocked out. Darkness and nothingness came back to claim him, and for the life of him he had no memory of the event of the surgery.

Well, except for that one moment when he woke up. He fuzzily remembered someone working on something on a table next to him, and then the "oh, crap-" of McLaren, having noticed his patient was somewhat conscious, and then the pull of the anesthesia again and the fading back to darkness. Apparently the dose that his inevitably inexperienced assistant had given him wasn't quite enough to keep him out completely. Guess they hadn't taken into account how many times the same stuff had gone through his system before. Thankfully, that was the only incident, and it hadn't happened iwhile/i a tooth was being taken out - rather in between removals, lucky for him.

The rest of the surgery went smoothly, and around noon Skipper had been called back to recollect the patient, still coming out of drugs and now with four teeth less. Transport home had already been arranged for them by the time he got there, so it was just a matter of persuading the rocky plane back to the airport. That of the still sound mind thanked McLaren for the service again, adding that they would surely be back again for everyone else's dental appointments, though probably not one this big for a long time.

"We'll be here!" He replied.

When the two planes made it back home, the beginning of the next six weeks began - lots of gauze-stuffing and salt water rinsing awaited him, but at least it was leading him back to being able to work without as much pain and discomfort. And sure enough, less than two days after the surgery, he was back to being his old self again around town, to everyone's - his own included - collected relief.

They were glad that even past the general age range, the crop duster recovered quickly and rather effortlessly. He was officially deemed able to eat solid food again after about four weeks, and after six he was completely back to being himself, save for not having to deal with the jaw pains. That was one more life-hurdle crossed off the list.

Notes:

-You will never have any idea how long it took me to come up with the name "Dr. Steven McLaren". It gives me heartburn to think about.

-McLaren Automotive is actually a thing, they make sports cars. Hence McLaren's "sleek looking exterior" one should not be fooled by. Specifically, a McLaren 650S. I dunno, they looked cool so I thought why not for a side character.

-It's writings like these that make me wonder what situations might have occured when these same things inevitably happen to all the other characters. At such a younger age, what would Skipper have been like getting his out? Or, gosh, Blade even? And what characters might have gotten lucky and not had to deal with them at all? (this topic open for discussion in the comments to any chatty readers)

-I had wisdom teeth pulled, if that wasn't already obvious from the familiarity of all of…"this". And I had never had any kind of surgery or big dentist appointment before, so yes I freaked the hell out. But I am SO glad I got knocked out for it all. All I remember was sitting in the chair, and then hours later being put into a wheelchair and stuck into the passenger seat of the car. And I, being like my father with crooked as heck teeth, had a molar removed as well that day. It got broken and I was in no mood to spend a lifetime trying to save it. But hey - no more pain. Or ice packs on my jaw.

-"stress chews" is actually a friendly nod to someone else's headcanon [BobblyChicken's]. It's basically a chew-toy for airplanes in otherwise stressful situations - i.e. the racing industry - as a way to keep their buzzing minds occupied physically.

-I wonder how many random places I'll learn otherwise useless things about in Wikipedia after writing all of these stories...yes I pick random, REAL locations for most of my story settings. I don't know, it feels wrong and somewhat disrespectful not to. It's like a writing etiquette.


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